A dream...

Last night I had a funny dream, a bit nightmarish. I gave a dinner party.  The seating arrangements were different, all the guests were sitting in groups of four around small tables  I was sitting with a friend, had an animated conversation, so he did not have a face I knew. He looked a bit like Rhett Butler from Gone with the Wind.

 The two other people, a gentleman and a lady I didn't know either. It turned out it was the Italian Ambassador and his wife. The gods know, I do not know any Italian Ambassadors nor their spouses. Anyway, I thought they were Spanish as the lady wore a Mantua and a Mantilla, I was wondering if I had forgotten that  it was a fancy dress party. Anyway, we were sitting and eating, talking, my friend “Rhett Butler” and I a little flirting, a sip of wine, suddenly my eyes swept over the other tables,  over to the Ambassador and his good wife, no one but "Rhett Butler" and I  had any wineglasses. Flustered I  said excuse me, got up from the table and wanted to go and get some wineglasses from the cupboard. The cabinet  was staring at me with empty shelves, all the glasses were gone. Frantically I tried  to remember where I  put them.  I ran around in the house and could not find the wineglasses, not one set. I looked in all the cupboards…nothing…then I woke up.

 The Moral of this story do not clean and rearrange your  cupboards before you go to sleep.

©Photo/text Ts

Tuesday...when a bell rings...

Brugmansia/ Angel's Trumpet;

Did you hear a bell ring today? It means an Angel just got his or her wings...

©Photo my garden Ts.

Wondrous;

Sunrise;

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. ~Michelangelo

©Photo Ts

When...If...

Rose Perle D'or flowering in the garden.

Unless you can love, as the angels may'

With the breath of heavens betwixt you....

Oh, never call it loving!

Elisabeth Barrett Browning; A Woman's Shortcomings

Photo Ts

Trees...

“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity... and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.” 

William Blake 

The host tree; small ferns have attached to the bark;

“Look: the trees exist; the houses

we dwell in stand there stalwartly. 

 Only we

pass by it all, like a rush of air.

And everything conspires to keep quiet

 about us,

half out of shame perhaps, half out of

 some secret hope.” 

 Rainer Maria Rilke,

 Beautiful curtain of  the  Casuarina;

“Willows whiten, aspens quiver, little breezes dusk and shiver, thro' the wave that runs forever by the island in the river, flowing down to Camelot. Four gray walls and four gray towers, overlook a space of flowers, and the silent isle imbowers, the Lady of Shalott.”

 Alfred Tennyson,

We are so small and we cut you down without a thought how you might feel; the chainsaw blasts and roars, crunches through your innerst  cores...Ts.

“We have nothing to fear and a great deal to learn from trees, that vigorours and pacific tribe which without stint produces strengthening essences for us, soothing balms, and in whose gracious company we spend so many cool, silent, and intimate hours.” 

Marcel Proust

“Fancy cutting down all those beautiful trees...to make pulp for those bloody newspapers, and calling it civilisation. - Winston Churchill, remarking to his son during a visit to Canada in 1929” 

 John Vaillant, The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed 

“Within its gates I heard the sound

Of winds in cypress caverns caught

Of huddling trees that moaned, and sought

To whisper what their roots had found.

“A Dream of Fear” 

George Sterling, The Thirst of Satan: Poems of Fantasy and Terror 

©Photos, some Text; Ts

June; baking a cake;

Authentic Carrot torte from the Canton Aargau, Switzerland

Lemon zest made with Bamix, easy and quick. Lemon from my tree, untreated, organic.

 Almonds ground with Bamix;

Ready for the oven;

Baked and iced;

Ready to eat.

Recipe

Rüeblitorte = Carrot torte.

5 egg yolks  (organic, mine are from my friendly black austral hens called “The Angelinas”

200 g Sugar  (add to yolks and mix until thick and  pale.)

250 g carrots, finely grated

250 g almonds ground

1 lemon organic not treated as you are using the peel, zested  and all the juice  (add to above)

80 g plain flour  organic if possible

1 tablespoon baking powder    (add to mixture)

5 egg white beaten until stiff and shiny (do not over beat)   

1 pinch of salt  (gently mix stiff egg whites into the mixture, (it is fairly sloppy)

Fill a spring form with this mixture. (prepare form, baking paper on bottom of form, butter the sides and  a little flour, so the cake won’t stick to the sides.)

Bake 180° C or(350 F) for around 50 minutes, test with a steel knitting needle to check if it is cooked.) Let it cool.

Icing, 

250 g Icing sugar  (powdered sugar)

2 - 3 tablespoons lemon juice, you can use different options

(or water with  a few drops bitter almond)  or ( 1 tablespoon water and 2 tblsp. Kirsch)

Mix  and pour over torte.

Enjoy!

© Recipe, photos Ts

Library cat...May;

The Serpent and the Staff

by

Barbara wood

Review

With a story that’s vividly told with rich historical details, Barbara Wood brings Ugarit to life. For readers who enjoy delving into the deep past of civilization, this is a recommended read

The plot and pacing are masterful, skilfully envisions a society set in biblical times, with people-trading, marrying and scheming in a thriving coastal town at the centre of ancient trade routes, rendered in soft focus but with marvellous clarity and complexity.

Her fiction come alive with authentic detailing and highly memorable characters, vivid sketches of women who triumph over destiny. 

Set in the tumultuous era when Egypt is on the brink of becoming the dominant world power, The Serpent and the Staff tells the powerful story of a Canaanite family's struggle for survival in a climate of violent change, when cherished beliefs and traditions are threatened.

Ugarit Syria, 1450 B.C.E.

Page 208; He thought of the moral decay of the Brotherhood, because the scribes had become to powerful. They have a monopoly on reading and writing.  Even Doctors and lawyers rely on them.  Such power has corrupted them. 

(Nobody could read and write, everybody had to employ or go to a scribe to have anything written down or read to them.. It was a complicated cunei form of writing with thousands of  pictographs.)

Cuneiform script is one of the earliest known systems of writing distinguished by its wedge-shaped marks on clay tablets, made by means of a blunt reed for a stylus. The name cuneiform itself simply means "wedge shaped", from the Latin cuneus "wedge" and forma "shape," and came into English usage probably from Old French cunéiforme.

The cuneiform writing system was in use for a span of more than three millennia, through several stages of development, from the 34th century BC down to the 2nd century AD. Ultimately, it was completely replaced by alphabetic writing (in the general sense) in the course of the Roman era and there are no Cuneiform systems in current use. It had to be deciphered as a completely unknown writing system in 19th-century Assyriology. Successful completion of its decipherment is dated to 1857.

My 2 cents; interesting history details, a great narrative, in between , on certain pages  it became a bit  ponderous. All in all enjoyable.